Photo Of The Day

by Lux on June 11, 2014 at 12:00pm

Women browse in a Kabul record store

Afghan Women

The Afghanistan government was shifting towards democracy in the 1950’s and 60’s before the Taliban took over. Women could work, become educated, dress casually and use many of the modern day services that men could.

Some time ago, it was an absolutely different country. Afghan women made a career in medicine, went to the movies and studied at the universities of Kabul. Afghan factories produced fabrics and other goods. There was law and order and the government could implement such large infrastructure projects as the construction of hydroelectric plants and roads (though not without help from outside). Ordinary people had hope for the future…

A lot of this has been destroyed by too many years of war.

Women in Afghanistan are brutally repressed under Taliban rule.

Under their rule women are forbidden to be educated, and to be publicly beaten for showing disobedience and forced to wear burqas – a garment that covers the whole body, apart from the eyes.